Caltech grads won t be able to physically walk up to get diploma, families can t sit on campus field
PASADENA, Calif. - It blows my mind, says Caltech student Nayla Abney in response to the school s graduation ceremony plans.
About 300 students will get to sit at the ceremony, while their families cheer them on virtually. According to the school s ceremony plans, family members even the parents who helped pay the tuition will not be allowed to sit in the stands.
While the students will be sitting about six feet apart for the ceremony, they will not be allowed to physically walk up to get their diploma.
Brace yourselves, students and parents. Your L.A. Unified School District campus may be reopening in April for the first time in potentially 13 months, but the place won t be quite the same.
You may be prepared for the now-familiar COVID-19 countermeasures face mask requirements, social-distancing warning signs, hand sanitizer stations.
But are you ready for a kindergarten classroom without shared toys, books, counting buttons, a reading chair, or even a circle-time rug? Parent Chaka Forman wasn t. 4:33
Support for LAist comes from This make me sad, Forman said as he toured the Venice classroom where his son once attended kindergarten. This was a vibrant room full of life, color, activity.
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Black students in Los Angeles County continue to face a multitude of barriers to an equitable education, including concentrated poverty, high suspension rates and housing insecurity, a UCLA report released Wednesday found.
Researchers focused on 14 school districts in the county that serve at least 800 Black students to understand how various factors are leaving behind Black children, particularly those considered vulnerable. The report by the UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools builds on a previous study that found schools serving Black students lacked critical resources counselors, nurses, social workers, highly qualified teachers and students’ home and community environment played a role in their academic success.
Had they more time and an endless reservoir of patience, the board, the California Department of Education and the Instructional Quality Commission, which reports to the state board, could have continued to refine what and how ethnic studies should be taught. But the Legislature set an April 1 deadline to pass the model curriculum, and more iterations would not resolve the irreconcilable differences between its staunchest advocates and critics.
The model curriculum, while voluntary for districts to adopt, is intended to build upon ethnic studies courses already offered as electives in hundreds of high schools. Two of the state’s largest districts indicated they intend to require an ethnic studies course for graduation: Fresno Unified next year and Los Angeles Unified in 2022-23.
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The Pasadena Unified School District on Thursday joined a growing number of Los Angeles County school systems that are swiftly putting plans in place to begin bringing elementary students back to campus by the end of the month, ending a year of pandemic-forced closures.
The discussion in Pasadena typified those unfolding in many school districts in the county as board members consider a host of issues: safety measures, vaccines for teachers and staff, parent decisions some who are eager to send their children back and others who are worried and want to continue distance learning.
“This weighs heavily on us,” said Pasadena Supt. Brian McDonald, after three hours of public comment, with many people voicing concern about returning to in-person instruction. Some teachers pushed back against the idea of reopening campuses without fully vaccinating staff. But the board agreed it is time to begin a phased-in reopening in the 17,400-student district.